Contracts for support just don't go poof.

No, but the support itself does. Then it becomes a legal issue, with you taking Apple to court, and you still don't have database updates or support.

Contracts for support are mostly useless in any case when your service is down and you need to get a vendor to respond in a timely fashion. If they are in breach of contract, you have no mechanism to force them into compliance in a short enough timeframe. I've been in situations several times where a vendor with a paid support contract just couldn't fix a problem fast enough and I was forced to dig into their product myself to figure out a fix.

This is why everything you build your own product on and that can't be replaced in a matter of hours by a competing product should come with source. Worst-case scenario, you fix the issue in source yourself.

This isn't entirely true. If you pay Oracle millions of dollars a year, their support is actually fantastic, like really, really good!

If you're into the last month or so of said contract and then your vendor is bought out before getting a chance to renew then one of two things happen:

1. the new owners aren't interested because they want to product to cannibalise for something else they're doing. Original product will never see the light of day again, no new bug fixes and possibly no more security patches.

2. the support contract cost is hiked up from maybe a few hundred dollars a year to several thousands

or the possibility of:

3. one or other of above but with the product's support staff reduced, dispersed or fired.

#1+3 above happened to us after Oracle bought out a bunch of stuff we relied on heavily for our hosting platform. Was a very painful time.

I am aware of that. My comment isn't about physical contracts, it's about expectations of a database company.

Also relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1TZaElTAs (About support contracts vs. community support)